Vierhonderdjarige herdenking van het overlijden van Desiderius Erasmus te Rotterdam 1936 1936

Bon Ingenhousz cast this bronze medal in 1936. It commemorates the 400th anniversary of the death of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. You know, when I look at this, I think about the act of commemoration itself. What does it mean to preserve a person in metal like this? There's a kind of pressure involved, isn't there, when you’re trying to capture someone's likeness? I imagine Ingenhousz really thinking, what would Erasmus, the great humanist and scholar, have thought of this? There’s a quietness in the portrait, a contemplative stillness. The inscription circles him like a halo, a solid band of bronze words, fixing him in history. I like to think about the relationship between artists through time. Even though they may have never met, they're constantly responding to and building upon each other's ideas, inspiring and challenging each other to see the world in new ways. This medal is a piece of that conversation.